Defense lifts Olympiacos over Khimki

Olympiacos Piraeus claimed its seventh consecutive home victory by breezing past Khimki Moscow Region and former coach Georgios Bartzokas 71-57 on Thursday night. The Reds led from start to finish and were up by 20 late in the third quarter, never looking in trouble despite a brief rally from Khimki early in the final stanza. Sasha Vezenkov and Kostas Papanikolaou led the scoring for the winning team with 14 points each. Nikola Milutinov – returning from illness – added 13 points and 7 rebounds. Jordan Mickey excelled for Khimki, pairing 21 points with 7 rebounds. Olympiacos improved to 12-7, while Khimki dropped to 7-12.

Three-pointers were the early order of the day, with Papanikolaou and Nigel Williams-Goss striking for Olympiacos while Anthony Gill responded for Khimki. The home team then pulled clear as Milutinov scored twice and Georgios Printezis netted three baskets in stretching the lead to 20-9. But Khimki came back with a 0-9 run bridging the end of the first and the start of the second quarters, culminating with a Tony Crocker three-pointer to make it 20-18. Papanikolaou finally ended the Olympiacos drought from deep and in a low-scoring quarter, Milutinov added an alley-oop and Janis Strelnieks beat the buzzer from long-range for a 32-22 halftime lead. Vezenkov and Crocker both scored twice early in the second half before Papanikolaou drained another pair of three-pointers and added a layup for a 48-28 lead. Strelnieks hit another buzzer-beater to make it 55-36 after three quarters. Mickey scored 7 quick fourth-quarter points and Gill netted consecutive baskets to bring Khimki back to 62-50 with 4 minutes remaining, but Vezenkov's long two stopped the comeback and Olympiacos cruised home.

Offensive go-slows in second quarter

Olympiacos looked to be on course for a blow-out after dominating the opening exchanges, but Khimki gave itself hope with an impressive defensive rearguard action in the second quarter, holding the home team scoreless for 6:31. However, Khimki then suffered its own offensive slowdown, finishing the half with only 4 points in 5 minutes to allow Olympiacos to sprint clear again.

Khimki sets unwanted record

That poor offensive spell contributed to an unwanted milestone for Khimki, which finished the first half with just 22 points: the lowest total in club history on the road in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. Khimki made just 2-of-13 three-pointers in the first half and had only 4 assists while committing 8 turnovers.

Papanikoalou still hot from long-range

One player who had no trouble finding the basket on a low-scoring night was Kostas Papanikolaou. The experienced forward converted 4 of his 8 three-point attempts in a total of 14 points. He also scored 6 of 7 three-pointers in his team's thrilling home win over KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz last week, so he has now made 10 of 15 triples in his last two home games.

Head Coaches

BLATT, DAVID

Olympiacos Piraeus

“We didn’t shoot the ball well and at times were lacking focus in executing offensively. But that’s basketball, there are two sides of the court and some nights you have to depend on one side to get you through. We’ll be better offensively. I want to say some words about Sasha Vezenkov. He’s there every day, always ready to play, and when he gets the chance he gives a great effort and a great performance. He was just fabulous tonight, and deserves any credit he gets.”

“I thought our team understood the moment and really came determined to defend our home court and play the right type of game. We just turned the ball over too much, hence our low score. Khimki is a good team and well coached, so it’s a good win for us.”

BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS

Khimki Moscow Region

"Congratulations to Olympiacos. They deserved to win as they played much better during the whole game. We had a poor offensive game with not a lot of creativity, without confidence while shooting the ball. We turned the ball over eight times in the first half, sometimes we made silly turnovers and we gave Olympiacos an opportunity to score in the open court. The truth is that the situation in our team is really tough and difficult. Sometimes I cannot complain because right now most of our meetings are for recovering, medical issues and not so much for tactical things or things that are involved in basketball. Today, Anthony Gill played with a lot of pain and in two or three days he will go back to the USA to see his situation, which probably will need surgery. Alexey Shved has a lot of time to come back and he is out more than 45-50 days. Also, Crocker played with an injection today. So, it's really difficult right now for our team to play so many games in a row at this level with such tough opponents and to compete against them. Anyway, we need to be positive, stay together, take one game at a time, and finally, we'll see what we reach, what we achieve."

Players

MILUTINOV, NIKOLA

Olympiacos Piraeus

“I feel exhausted! It was tough, and I need some games to get back into rhythm because didn’t I practise for 6 or 7 days, but I will work hard to get back to shape as soon as can. Every game is important and I just try to help the team. I’m happy I could do it today.”

VEZENKOV, SASHA

Olympiacos Piraeus

“The most important thing is for the team to win. It was a must-win game for us, so I’m happy we played excellent defence and we were good on offense in the second half. I’m here every night to help my team. [Next week against Fenerbahce] is a very big game, they only have two losses in this marathon, they play together with a great coach so we have to be focussed 100%.”